Location(s) of impact

Website

www.si-usa.org

Aakash Ganga ("River from the Sky" in Hindi) is a rainwater harvesting system specifically developed to assure safe drinking water to rural communities for generations. The program parallels a public utility model, where every homeowner in the community grants rights to harvest their rooftop rainwater. Through the gutters, spouts, and pipes the rooftop rainwater is channeled to at-home and community reservoirs.
A rainwater harvesting park will collect additional 6 million liters per village.

Rajasthan is one of the driest states in India. Due to the lack of lakes and rivers, the people of Rajasthan depend on aquifers, underground geological formations that contain water, for their water supply. India’s aquifers are losing 60 cubic miles annually - a rate that would turn Lake Erie into a dust bowl in two years.

Women in the villages clean their dishes with sand to conserve water for drinking. Water is the most precious commodity.

In rural villages, it is the women's or girls' job to fetch water for their families. The women will walk in groups, singing folklores to lessen the monotony, for several miles a day fetch water from the well or open pond. It is a chore that takes better part of their day. This prevents women from earning livelihood and girls from attending school.
Aakash Ganga promotes education, especially for girls.

Aakash Ganga stores clean, safe rainwater in a reservoir in the village courtyards. Women need to walk only a few steps, as opposed to few miles, to get water. The poor families get water from the community reservoir located at a few hundred feet from their homes.
Instead of a load of water, girls now carry a load of books.

This is the community reservoir in Raila. The community reservoirs provide drinking water to people living below the poverty line who cannot afford to invest in the system, or whose rooftops are unfit for the infrastructure and are therefore unable to collect rainwater. This ensures that everyone in the village has equal access to water.

GISCorp created a satellite map book of Sanwlod village. the map shows rooftops larger (red) or smaller (blue) than 145 square meters. Red rooftops are connected to the community reservoir. Map books minimize earthwork, eliminate costly surveys, and assign a unique number to each reservoir to fix its location -- villages don’t have street names and house numbers. By automating rooftop measurement, map books enable accurate estimation of rainwater volume to be captured from each rooftop.

“It used to take 4 hours (for me to fetch water for my family) and now it takes 4 minutes. My youngest daughter is in college. My mind and heart are at peace.” - Nirmala Devi, Lasedi.

Vimla Devi is a resident of Harinagar. The groundwater has receded to several hundred feet depth and has high concentration of nitrates and fluorides (exceeding WHO limits by 10 to 30 times). Because of the minerals, she had perennial inflammation in her joints. Now she has Aakash Ganga's clean safe drinking water. When SI visited with her, she thanked Aakash Ganga for “no more inflammation in my joints.”
Aakash Ganga improves health.

Kamruddin is the principal of the local school in Kakreu Kalan. The school didn’t have “sweet water” in the school, and the local groundwater had high content of minerals and tasted salty. The day time temperature hovers around 110 F. Children would rush home in the scorching heat to get a drink of sweet water.
Since Aakash Ganga built a rainwater reservoir, observed Kamruddin, “the children didn’t skip classes to rush home for the drink of sweet water.”

Bhagwati Devi is the resident of Raila village. When asked how Aakash Ganga had benefitted her, she responded, “My cow’s milk doubled because of Aakash Ganga.” Prior to Aakash Ganga she didn't have enough water for her dairy animals.
Aaksh Ganga betters livelihood.

The rainwater that Aakash Ganga collects and stores is free of contaminants and bacteria that cause illnesses such as diarrhea, which is one of the leading causes of death among children under 5 years old in India.

With clean water available right at their doorsteps, girls are now free to get an education.They carry the load of books, not of water.

Aakash Ganga leases the rooftops from homeowners and installs pipes to collect the monsoon rains that lasts for 45 to 60 days. The rainwater is split in two halves; one half is stored in the homeowner's reservoir for their exclusive use, and the other half is channel to the community reservoir that serves the poor people. The 50/50 sharing ensures socially equitable distribution of water and promotes social harmony.
Reservoir Capacity in liters: At-home 25,000 and community 500,000.

The International Energy Globe Awards were instituted by the Austria-based Energy Globe Foundation. The awards recognize projects for their environmental sustainability in four categories: Water, Fire, Earth, and Youth Development. In 2010, Aakash Ganga won not only the award in the Water category, but the World Award in all categories for its sustainability.

B.P. Agrawal was one of the Top Ten CNN Heroes in 2015 for Aakash Ganga. CNN's Anderson Cooper and Hollywood actor Sharon Stone honored Dr. Agrawal at the "An All Star tribute" that was aired worldwide.

Solution Summary: What is the proposed solution? What do you see as its most promising aspects for creating shared value?

Solution: Aakash Ganga or AG, a rainwater harvesting system, adapted the US utility industry model to ensure systemic sustainability. Analogous to acquisition of passage or spectrum rights by the utility industry, AG acquires rainwater harvesting rights from homeowners and local governments. Like the public utility commission (PUC), a consumer watchdog, a village elders' committee, 50% women participants, sets policy for equitable access to water.
With life-span of 25 years, AG's shared value lasts for a generation. Its most promising aspects are: 1. Co-ownership by the people and communities; 2. Empowering people to conduct daily audit, online daily audit, of the program; 3. Monetizing traditions and social bonds. The daily audit is the ultimate standard of transparency/accountability; builds trust with us and with AG.
It took 8 years to perfect AG for cultural, operational, economic, institutional, technological, societal, political, and environmental sustainability

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Specify both the social and the environmental impact of your work

Piloted in six villages, home to 10,000 people. Built 214 structures. Collects 15 million liters of rainwater annually. Costs $0.02 per thousand liter capacity.
Social Impact: Delivers 25,000 liters of clean water per family. Weaned people off free-water entitlement culture. Equitable access to water created social harmony. Daily audit restored trust in community-based programs. Freed women to earn livelihood, girls to get an education, and children of water-borne diseases.
Financial Impact: Each village contributed $20,000. Local gov't contributed 10,000 Sq. Meter land. A first in India. Digital technologies, satellite imaging and geographical information system eliminated surveys. Saved $5,000 per village. Cut design period from 12 to 2 weeks.
Water Resource Management: Remote IT-based monitoring of water quality and quantity. Capacity 1 million reservoirs.
Leadership: Builds local capacity. Online knowledge repository enables speedy replication by others.

Financial sustainability plan: How is this initiative financially supported? How will you ensure its financial sustainability long-term?

Current: 100% funding from U.S. foundations, individual donors, and Indian diaspora. Mitigated risks of co-investment by people; social and political upheavals, and local government resistance.
Pursuing two-pronged strategy for scale up. A. Partner with commercial companies to acquire rainwater harvesting rights for every village in India. Build a water utility in every village.
B. Form public-private-consumer partnership (PPCP) wherein Gov't to provide 80% capital and 20% by the private sector and beneficiaries. The government's prerequisite is that PPCP should demonstrate sustainability in 50-villages and mitigate the risks. Sustainable Innovations aims to raise $5 million from philanthropic ventures and donors for the 50-village demonstration.

Unique value proposition: What makes your initiative innovative? How does your project differ from other organizations working in the same field?

Water solutions such as Water ATMs, bore wells, and Play Pumps work when ground water is plentiful but hasten aquifer depletion.
Big Idea: Aakash Ganga births a new industry – a federation of local water-utilities -- to harvest rainwater in every village.
Value proposition: Accepts India as “it-is”. Doesn’t seek behavior change, glacially slow. Monetizes ancient traditions and social bonds. AG is systemically sustainable, culturally, politically, economically, and operationally.

Founding story: Share a story about the "Aha!" moment that sparked the beginning of this initiative.

In 2003, I acquired the intellectual property rights from the Eastern Virginia Bankruptcy Court to start a new venture. I invited a few friends for dinner to raise seed capital. In between the samosa bites, we talked of giving back to solve social problems, like water scarcity, in our homeland, India. Suddenly, a friend thumped the coffee table and asked, “What difference would it make, even if we were to give $100 million to India?” The conversation came to abrupt halt, meaning money may not make a difference.
If not money, then what will make difference? That was my "aha!" moment.
Months later, I realized that India needs a systemically sustainable development model to replace its "build-neglect-rebuild" model (IRC Water and Sanitation Center, Holland). I started to innovate a development model to end water scarcity in rural India. And Aakash Ganga was born.

Where did you hear about the Nestlé Creating Shared Value Prize?

Ashoka page or contact

Evaluation results

5 evaluations so far

1. Overall evaluation

5 - This idea rocked my world. It’s awesome! - 40%

4 - This idea seems really exciting. With a little more polishing, it’d be among my favorites. - 60%

3 - I think the idea is great, but it needs some work before it moves onto the next round. - 0%

Great work, BP. Exciting to see how your work has progressed since we first came across you in 2012. I applaud you for your commitment to continually improving and perfecting your rainwater harvesting system. I especially love your holistic approach that takes into account technological innovation as well as cultural, economic, and political change.

Great to see your truly innovative approach and focus on the very long term. Your holistic understanding including cultural and environmental factors is a great strength. I hope all your work to this point pays off!

Yes, Aakash Ganga is an infrastructure to last generations. I recall during my first visit, it became clear that villagers are unwilling to co-invest. They expect free water as an entitlement. Later on I went back and offered to their rooftops for a fee to collect rainwater from their rooftops or acquire rainwater harvesting rights. This model clicked.

Your work is really fantastic and what you've done already is inspiring (great pics too)! We should consider collaborating in other parts of India where groundwater geogenic contamination is rampant (my expertise is in fluoride contamination).

This is a wonderful example of a sustainable relationship between an energy source (BP Agrawal and Aakash Ganga)) and the local communities. It is very unusual for communities to contribute so substantially to an "outside" project, even when the benefits are clear. And water is essential for life. Just think what additional funding could do. Sharon Rising

I applaud Centering Healthcare for scaling the program to 500 health systems and practices. Will love to learn from your experience whenever you have time.

We have coupled Aakash Ganga (River form the Sky in HIndi) with Arogya, (Disease Free in Hindi) a health care delivery program that supports female high-school graduates to set up their own health enterprises for delivery of health care a patients' doorstep.

Dear @BP AGRAWAL, great work on sustainable development model for reducing/ending water scarcity. I had interacted with another organisation working in Rajasthan called Manthan. They too have done tremendous work on improving ground water and using rain water harvesting. It could be of great synergy for both to come together - here is their website link http://www.manthankotri.in/. Please do let me know, if you want to connect with them personally. All the best for the project. It is need of the hour!

Thanks, Nitish, for reaching our. Our strategy is to share our social enterprise model, best practices, and social innovations with credible and financially sound organizations for speedy replication of Aakash Ganga and health care delivery system.

A great endeavor! Understanding a need, and combining low tech with hitech, with ingenious ways to pull together community participation to self-sustain. Much needed water, only those who don't have, can appreciate. Thank you!

Yes, one of the challenges was to simplify technology for village-level adaptation and maintenance. For example, standardization of hand pumps enable "footings" on reservoir top to hold the pump in place. Otherwise the pump wobbles while pulling water from the reservoir. Another example: Villages don't have street names and house numbers. How does one identify physical location of a reservoir? Aakash Ganga created map books based on satellite images. The map books show latitude and longitude of every reservoir. Aaksh Ganga uses the latitude and longitude to identify a reservoir.

My daughter had the opportunity to intern this summer at Sustainable Innovations. She was so impacted by their work, she wrote her college application essay about her experience... an excerpt:" As I scrolled through the non-profits webpage, I found myself analyzing villager's faces as they hoisted up buckets of clean water. These images linked them to the organization, the donors, and even me halfway around the world. My desire to know each and every person multiplied. I spent the rest of the day entranced, learning how the water we collected allowed a mother to send her child to school, helped a farmer's cow increase milk production, and saved children from waterborne disease. ... Each grant I found represented a chance to change another life for the better...

Wow, Skip. It is powerful essay for Aakash Ganga. Emee has captured the essence of Aakash Ganga in such simple and heart-touching language. She just pumped me up. Please convey my thanks to Emee. Will it be possible to get a copy of her essay?

Kirsten, the progress has been steady but slow. Now my focus is on building SI and recruiting staff with experience of scaling social programs. (You had advised me quite sometime back.) I expect new team members to join me shortly.

Bzp Agrawal was a winner of The Purpose Prize whilr I was running the program at Encore.org. He's a true social Innovator bringing change to many in India. The adaptation of the well-established utility industry model for rainwater harvesting assures scalability and longevity. Dr. Agrawal saw hidden economic value in the ancient traditions and social norms. His “daily audit” is a home-grown innovation to win trust and fight corruption.

Michelle, my approach for expansion of the Utility model is to share our utility model, innovations, business practices, and cultural sustainability broadly. You may be aware of platforms to disseminate the knowledge. Will you let me know of these platforms?

Coming from that part of the world where Dr.Agarwal and his team run the Aakash Ganga program,I can only imagine the difference this project has been creating and how this has touched and altered the daily lives of people like never before. Best wishes to the team and hope we see this project expand and bring more people under it's umbrella.

One difference the program made is to make me a better listener. While scouting for a needy village, I was in Lasedi. The people, all male, were pleading with me to implement Aakash Ganga in Lasedi. I wasn't convinced. And then a woman approached me with a water jug. I poured water in my mouth and ......... involuntarily spat -- it was incredibly salty.

The woman admonished me: "I have to drink it everyday."

I decided right then to implement Aakash Ganga in Lasedi. Wouldn't you salute her ability to communicate?!

When asked of benefits of Aakash Ganga, one woman enthused: "My cow's milk has doubled." Prior to Aakash Ganga she didn't have enough water for her cows. Dairy animals are the source of their livelihood.

The global community is facing complex problems, and this project takes on one of the basic problems that society faces. The project addresses the pressing problem of health and inequality in its various forms.

As Dean of the Business School, you can speak to gender inequality. It is women's burden to fetch water for their families. During my visit to Snawlod, I met with Sharmila, a college graduate. Her face lit up at the thought of having "sweet" water at her doorstep. They call rainwater "sweet" water because the ground water is salty. Thank

A self-sustaining renewable water supply system is essential for survival. Additionally, by removing the work-load of fetching water, this project enables a regenerative cycle for the under-privileged to pull themselves out of poverty. The concept of collecting rainwater on Home rooftops was not new in the deserts of Rajasthan, India - my mother’s ancestral home followed this practice. “Modern” urbanization destroyer that tradition. This project integrates traditions with engineeringto create a novel solution to collect and distribute water equitably with auditable transparency. It’s organic growth strategy is fundamentally more sustainable than the top-down planning of today’s society.

This project is so important because it will fundamentally improve the health and well-being of people in small villages. Women are often saddled with the burden of collecting water in their communities, which leaves them with little time to develop businesses of their own or even go to school. Also, if people are sick from diseases in the water they can not improve the lives of other people in their community. This project is incredibly important and has demonstrated success in the past. I hope you will support it.

India has a drinking water problem all over. In big cities government start projects to fulfill the requirements of the public but in small villages nothing gets done. This results in scarcity of pure drinkable water and many deceases and many people die and family suffer. Aakash Ganga is trying to solve this problem which is very cost effective. It has built the sustainability of the project by reducing the cost with lots of volunteer work and industry contribution. I salute the people associated with this project for their time, effort and service.

I'm so moved by this project! With our rapidly changing climate, water insecurity is increasingly becoming a way of life, and we need all the innovation and creativity we can get. But so many initiatives I come across that aim to confront climate change and water scarcity fail to take into account the local realities and cultural norms in the communities they serve, and the projects ultimately flop. Aakash Ganga seems to get that we can't fight climate change with a one-size-fits-all approach. It brings a cultural competence that a generic project from a think tank simply can't. And in helping to fade out gender and class inequities, it's building a society that will be better prepared to deal with a future of resource uncertainty. Thank you for doing this essential work!

Debra, as you observed Aakash Ganga's approach is to build a local water utility in every village. Their parent utility will ensure flow of financial, intellectual, and managerial resources. That is what makes Aakash Ganga systemically sustainable.

Bhagawati you are doing a great job for the community You saw hidden economic value in the ancient traditions and social norms. His “daily audit” is a home-grown innovation to win trust and fight corruption. Astounding! Thanks

Too often, we view ancient traditions as agents of inertia. They sap a community's agility, we think. They impede progress. Aakash Ganga is culturally sustainable because it has integrated the cultural traditions and societal norms.

The Sustainable Innovations model relies on an enviable combination of low-cost technology, human capital rooted in local culture and customs and financial sustainability. From my many years as a public policy and foundation executive I have watched BP develop his concept, build the SI organization, and engage new supporters to this all important mission. Having an adequate water resource is getting much needed attention. In many parts of the world only local strategies have any hope of making an impact. Thank you SI.

Gail, thank you very much for your endorsement of the Aakash Ganga's utility model.

In September 2017, the Drucker Institute selected Sustainable Innovations as one of the finalist for $100,000 Drucker Prize. The prize recognizes non-profits for change or innovation that creates a new dimension of performance. In Aakash Ganga's case the change was integration of integration of technology, local culture, and business approach. And the "new dimension" was birth of the local water utility industry.

Drinking Water is very next to getting oxygen to live. It’s a pity that many human beings don’t get as basic thing as safe drinking water after all the advancements and wealth creation by mankind over last 50 years. Dr Agrawal has done so much difference in the most challenging state when it comes to safe drinking water for people. With his track record any financial aid provided will help create maximum impact one can imagine.

I recently read that India extracts more groundwater than any other country. It seems that the reserves are reaching dangerously low levels, so a system like this could prove to be incredibly important.

Just imagine: the rate at which India is sucking up its aquifers dry, Lake Erie may become a dust bowl and Niagara Falls a trickle in couple of years. On December 10, 2015, USA Today published a report on the dire situation in India. Some regions of India are rapidly running out of groundwater. We are looking for organizations to collaborate, share our enterprise model, and bring waterto millions. If you spot such an organization, steer them to our way.

Yes, Annika, Aakash Ganga was designed to rhyme with the local culture and social norms. Rather than seeking communities' to change their behavior, a glacially slow process, Aakash Ganga adapts itself to suit the local cultures.

This is a necessary and honorable endeavor. So many of us take access to water for granted, but your organization and efforts recognize a huge need that can improve the lives of so many. The impact - to the individual, a family, a community, and a society - are great.

Aakash Ganga provides not only an essential basic need for water through a unique method of collection via natural weather but affords women and families the time to be better educated to have a better standard of living. It can truly change people's lives.

Laura, the next step is to scale up the new dimension -- grow the local water utility industry. Every village will have its own water utility. The communities and local governments will co-invest in the infrastructure. Aakash Ganga would give India a new development model to replace its fossilized "build-neglect-rebuild" model, (Reference: Lessons for Rural Water Supply by IRC International Center for Water and Sanitation). For the lack of annual monitoring and maintenance the rural systems become dis-functional quickly. The model will free up local governments of annual operational costs to maintain the system.Thanks,BP

Aakash Ganga is addressing a crippling problem affecting remote areas of India. It is inspiring to see the impact that this model has already had on the lives of women and girls in the villages in which it has been implemented.

Brij, when I started sustainability meant "economic sustainability." It is during the visits to the villages I discovered the cultural, societal, political, operational, and other facets of sustainability.

Harvesting rainfall from rooftops is a relatively simple process that has proven effective in many parts of the world. Since the system described is comparatively inexpensive, and has a long life, the impact can be wide and enjoyed for decades. Clean water is absolutely vital to the health and well being of any community. This system will reduce the huge numbers afflicted by water borne diseases, and will free those tasked with searching for and collecting water, frequently polluted, to pursue other more productive activities. The potential health and economic benefits are enormous. This is a very worthwhile project.

Wilson, when we conceived the utility industry model long-term sustainability was on our mind. The model had to be so simple that it can be explained in less than 10 words. With time we simplified the rainwater harvesting model to simply "rent the rooftops from homeowners and government."

This is a brilliant project founded on knowledge of and sensitivity to the community it has been designed to help. One of the aspects I find the most admirable is that the structure of the plan lets the members of the community interact naturally without requiring them to change their approaches. At the same time it creates opportunity for positive change especially for the women and children. This is an expansion of an already working model that many other communities in India, as well as other countries, can benefit from.